performed by the Vienna Philharmonic under Claudio Abbado, or as below, Abbado with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, a wonderful performance So here we are, at kind of the middle point of our series, and we have reached quite a point in … Continue reading Mahler Symphony no. 3
– a foreword The Artist. Inspiration. Intensity. Devotion. Drama Genius. Talent. Tragedy. Success. Failure. And usually a little bit of crazy. Most of these things come to mind when people think of the typical ‘artist’ in whatever medium, be … Continue reading Hans Rott: The Real Genius?
This will be a short one, but I was just thinking, as I’m listening to next week’s piece, perhaps how critical (or not) interpretations are. In reading a review of a certain conductor’s traversal of the symphonies of the composer of next week’s piece, I was a bit surprised. If you didn’t know who the conductor was, who the (very famous) orchestra was, or perhaps even which symphony cycle of what composer it was, the review would seem no better than scathing, with a few moments of honest admiration. There was more than one like that of the same recordings. … Continue reading The scope of interpretation
Music You Can Understand: Part 4 (I use this title not condescendingly, but to suggest that the featured piece is not one obscured by highbrow classical ideas or too difficult to grasp. It is easy to understand and enjoy.) performed … Continue reading Mahler: Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen
This is something that baffles and fascinates me. I may have mentioned it here in passing before, but let’s talk about it some more. We’re on a little string of piano concertos here (first Arensky, then Rachmaninoff, then Prokofiev, and the next two weeks [well, this week and next week] [at least]), and Mahler is getting VERY in the way of me preparing for these. I’ve been on a kick with listening to LOTS of different interpretations of his pieces (at the time of this writing, I’m currently finishing up a listen to Boulez’s performance of the eighth with Staatskapelle … Continue reading 184 Years is a Long Time
I started this a year ago, first on Tumblr (old site), and migrated to our current location, and had the deluded belief that I could listen through about a piece a day and “get” it. I’d listen multiple times and think I could write something intelligent on it. Looking back, that was definitely not the case, and there are at least 15 or more posts that I will be revisiting. I’ll keep the original write-ups for nostalgia, but want to do those pieces justice like I couldn’t before. Myaskovsky 2 and Bruckner 6 and Nielsen 2 come to mind (won’t … Continue reading It’s been a year!
National Concert Hall, Taipei, Taiwan A while back on this post, I discussed somewhat of an issue with being so excited to hear Mahler’s ninth live. I’ve mentioned it in way too many places to link to the posts, but I’ve become rather enamored with Mahler’s music in the past year or so, and it is now bordering on an obsession. It started with the fifth, the first of his works to appear here, and then the second, then the first, then the sixth. And I am realizing either because of context (understanding of a greater portion of the man’s … Continue reading Concert Review: A Ninth to Remember
I went a few weeks ago to hear this ensemble (see my remarks below about the name) play in our National Concert Hall here in Taipei. This past year or so, I’ve been working through an obsession with the works of Mahler. I still haven’t cracked into Das Lied or some of the song cycles much, but have gotten my head around most of the symphonies. It’s mostly three and nine that are left to really be explored, as well as whatever exists of the tenth in its various forms. I spent most of the summer not going to … Continue reading Concert Review: 臺北世紀青年管弦樂團- An Evening of Mahler
As I’ve said before in multiple places here, I have lots of anticipation and ideas and thoughts about Mahler’s ninth that may or may not be accurate, but I have certainly built it up a lot in my head, and I am realizing that it may all be a bit overblown. It doesn’t much matter, because that whole dream image of how I planned to enjoy Mahler’s pinnacle work for the first time is coming to an end much earlier than I’d expected. I read this article that describes Mahler’s ninth as a great symphony. I then sort of ran … Continue reading Thinking about Mahler’s ninth
August 25 Births: 1758 – Franz Teyber, Austrian organist and composer (d. 1810) 1796 – James Lick, American carpenter and piano builder (d. 1876) 1829 – Carlo Acton, Italian pianist and composer (d. 1909) 1902 – Stefan Wolpe, German-American composer (d. 1972) 1915 – Walter Trampler, American viola player and educator (d. 1997) 1918 – Leonard Bernstein, American pianist, composer, and conductor (d. 1990). Thinking so much about and listening to so much Mahler lately…. I can appreciate Bernstein’s influence as an educator and hugely enormous proponent of Mahler’s works (thanks also, I suppose in part, to Mitropolous), but I tend not to go for his interpretations (granted, I haven’t given them as … Continue reading On this day: week of August 25, 2014
This piece has been revisited, and an updated article has been written. Please read it here. I’ll keep the original article (below) for posterity, but I would suggest reading the new article instead. performed by the St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra … Continue reading Mahler Symphony no. 6
There’s something about these two…. This is a complicated heavy topic, one which I am not really quite ready to address. I have been more and more enthralled with the music of each of these great composers (mostly the symphonies), but I see similarities that link them on an intriguing, deep, almost spiritual level. (They even look a bit like each other in the photos above, no?) There are the obvious parallels: they were both Austrian composers who left the world nine-ish symphonies with some unfinished bits. They are both known for their ninth symphonies (among other works) (see the … Continue reading Schubert and Mahler
July 7 Births: 1860 – Gustav Mahler, Austrian composer (d. 1911)- Oh. Yeah. One of the greatest symphonists of all time. Ever. And a brilliant conductor, all around genius musician. 1911 – Gian Carlo Menotti, Italian-American composer (d. 2007) 1976 – Vasily Petrenko, Russian conductor Deaths: 1987 – Germaine Thyssens-Valentin, Dutch-French pianist (b. 1902) 2003 – Izhak Graziani, Bulgarian conductor (b. 1924) July 8 Births: 1604 – Heinrich Albert, German composer and poet (d. 1651) 1882 – Percy Grainger, Australian-American pianist and composer (d. 1961) As cooky (and apparently perverted) as this guy was, I absolutely love his works. We played quite a few in high school. 1900 – George Antheil, American pianist, composer, and author … Continue reading On this day: Week of July 7, 2014
A musical scavenger hunt of sorts. “He’s making a list… he’s checking it…” oh, only about half a billion times. I got this idea from this thread at Talk Classical which you may not be able to read without logging in. This is essentially an exercise in musical sudoku. There is ZERO inherent quality that a first symphonies of multiple composers would have in common, save it being the first one they wrote. Prokofiev’s first as a kind of musical caricature is so different from the ambitious first symphonies of Brahms or Mahler or Rott (his only, as I know, thanks … Continue reading The favorite symphonies list
I couldn’t agree more with this article. I was giddy when I found it. Read it and then come back. (Buckle up. The first few paragraphs are outrageously tangential, and then we get to the main point.) I am coming to have a closer relationship with classical music after realizing that it is perhaps the only thing that helps me enjoy or look forward to washing dishes. I don’t have a dishwasher, and I cook a ton (and I’m a messy cook), so there’s lots of washing up to be done in a very small kitchen, but instead of setting a … Continue reading Nerds (geeks?) and Classical Music
This piece has been revisited, and an updated article has been written. Please read it here. I’ll keep the original article (below) for posterity, but I would suggest reading the new article instead. performed by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Leonard Bernstein I believe the recording above is the same as the one I listened to from this box set by Deutsche Grammophon. If not, go check out that recording, because it’s the one I want. Hello again, Mahler. Hello, not-so-old friend. It’s been not-so-long. To this day, if I need to get in the kitchen and cook or clean … Continue reading Mahler Symphony no. 1 in D, ‘Titan’
This piece has been revisited, and an updated article has been written. Please read it here. I’ll keep the original article (below) for posterity, but I would suggest reading the new article instead. performed by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus under Yoel Levi Mary Phillips, mezzo-soprano, Barbara Bonney, soprano Buckle up. This is a long one. The post and the symphony. Before I start talking about baseless, subjective things, let’s get a few cold, hard facts out of the way. Mahler’s second symphony was written between 1888 and 1894, and premiered on December 13, 1895 in Berlin under the composer’s baton. … Continue reading Mahler Symphony no. 2 "Resurrection"
This piece has been revisited, and an updated article has been written. Please read it here. I’ll keep the original article (below) for posterity, but I would suggest reading the new article instead. I also wrote about it much more recently over at my newly established Substack as part of a concert program alongside Mozart’s Dm concerto in January of 2026. Please go check that out. performed by the Chicago Symphony under Georg Solti This piece was written between 1901-1902. This is the second week in a row I have been able to write about a piece after having seen … Continue reading Gustav Mahler: Symphony no. 5
Fugue for Thought 